The Nurse

wound was fatal. I believe that not enough has been done to thought of Courtney murder, Like what would you like done that I haven't done. I personally would have went back and reinterviewed everybody to make sure that we absolutely who ever did this to us, as did you turn yourself in to ask for forgiveness from God. My name is Chaparral Else this is a story of my son, Courtney, a young black man in a fancy car who wound up with a bullet in his back in front of

a Chicago police station. And it's the story of my search for the truth. This is Somebody. Everybody. Somebids every day non bide the snugging. That's right, and so every black person in this country must rise up and say I'm somebody. I have a rich, proud and noble history, however painful and exploded, it has been a Black people have always had to say it out loud, I am somebody because the people in charge keep telling us we're not.

I am black, but I'm black and beautiful. This is something Dr Martin Luther King used to stay in front of crowds, and Reverend Jesse Jackson has carried on the tradition. When I hear Reverend Jackson saying that when he tells you that you are somebody, he reminds you to think about your own self worth. And even though the world around you was telling you that you are nothing, you

are somebody. And my son Courtney, he was somebody. I felt I had the responsibility to force the police to take a look at his case and say, hey, this kid is somebody. Hey, everybody, welcome back to Keep Up Alive with Reverend Jesse Jackson. I'm Santita Jackson. We want you to call us at one. That's Santita Jackson. She co hosts the radio show Keep Hope Alive with her

father Reverend Jesse Jackson here in Chicago. Their show airs on w v o N The Voice of the Nation, but it used to be called the Voice of the Negro. The station was a catalyst and getting out the message of the civil rights movement, and now their mainstream. Let me go to chappearl from Chicago. What is on your mind? I've been a frequent caller for years. I'm always on their Facebook page and I'm so glad you came off

of that Facebook. What's on your money today? Thank you so much for taking my concern a little good morning to your panel. I wanted to actually reiterate what Dr Roberts said. You were one of my best callers, someone who was very confrontational in a respectful way, very informed, and very determined to get the story right. So the thing about Santita, she knows so many people, she's connected. So after Courtney was killed, she was one of the first people I called. There was two or three in

the morning, something like that. I immediately became alarmed because anyone who calls me at that hour it's typically not good news. And you were in between crying and talking, and you just kept saying, this is my son and my baby. You just kept saying, Courtney, my baby, my baby, Santita, he's been killed. I told her the detectives wouldn't tell me much of anything, but they wanted to ask me a bunch of questions. I said, I told you to stop.

You need to record that is right down, everything that you heard and saw felt, because you will lose it as we go, as time goes on. Fantitita's advice to write everything down, that was the best advice I could have been given. In the beginning, you get the truth. The cover up happens after the first day or so, but in the beginning, you get the truth. I went straight into investigate a mode. I wrote up a timeline and I made a voice recording on my phone to

keep track of all the details. I told that recorder everything I was thinking about the night I got the news, so approximate around two fifteen am, I received a thunderous beat on my door and I told that recorder about my conversation with detectives. I begin to question, through my pain, can I talk to the officer. I need to know exactly what my son said to him, and they said that that's the only thing that he had said that he had been shot. I also told that recorder about

what I really believed happened to Courtney. I believe my son was stopped and pulled out his vehicle because they ran the place and they saw a young black man driving the Hispanic area with a car that was not registered in a black person's name. Courtney had a co

sign on that BMW his friend Christian Hernandez. It was his name on the car registration and not Courtneys, which the police would have known they ran his plates, and Christian told me that police called him right after Courtney died to ask who the real owner of the car was. And another thing we knew. The police had Courtney's name, the male of his name, and so they would have learned that Courtney had an I R number. That's a number that's assigned to you when you're arrested. Let me

give you a little backstory. When Courtney was about seventeen, he and some friends found a debit card to school and they used it to buy some Harold's chicken. And I get this phone call and it's my mom and she's like, Courtney's in jail. I'm like, who what, Cordneys, Who does our mare. So I have told her well, and I don't care what he did. Leave him there. I remember being so mad at him. Courtney was punished

with the in school suspension. The case was tossed. He never got rested again, but the I R number followed him, no matter that he was just a kid and all that he and his friends did was still some chicken. A week after Courtney died, me, my husband Brent, and my mom Renee, we met with police. The station was old and dilapidated. Brint recorded the whole thing on his phone from his pocket. Hello. Hi. While we waited, I

was taking calls and planning Courtney's funeral. The wake is at one, then the uh, the actual services is going to start at three, so it's a two hour visitation and then the program obvious a meeting. Can I getting some soft drinks, water chips, anything at all? Waters, water, water, free water from you? Yeah, Monday is the barrier, Sergeant Mitchell? No, no, no, is that team. Hold hold on one second. The three

of us set across from the three of them. I just wanted to know if you want to speaking next, and what was your sergeant, Mitchell? Sergeant m Yes, ma'am. Oh, you're the big wig. Huh. I wrote down their names. Okay, okay, first of all, you have our condolences. Um. Everybody we've spoken to. Um, there's someone was a great kid, Um and nobody's had a bad word to say about them. And they told us they do everything they could to find out who killed court this er persons to justice. Okay.

We we we myself, the detectives. I couldn't have two better guys work in the case. Okay. Um, you know there's you know, there's some sometimes people are out in that game, they're they're playing out there and you know, things happen. This is not the case here, um, And like I said, you're it provides us with an extra incentive. You know. We were kind of of the belief that homicide is you know, it's almost biblical. It's like the worst thing you can do to somebody. Here. They asked if we

had any questions. My mom, Brent and I we had a lot, so farre away. Okay. The first question I hit was who was the officer on the scene that assisted my son. There were several officers on the scene, and um, they did they attempted to They were they're comforting to your son. We know that for a fact. Um, may we have the n ange of the officers. No, I am not gonna um not right now. Okay, let's just okay, okay, okay, um. No, we're not going to

give out names of officers in this okay, Um. But I can ensure you that they summoned help right away. They comforted your son. Um, they did all that they could to help him. Um. You know, you know, you see and you hear a lot of things. But I'm actually really proud of the way the officers conducted themselves, you know. But when I started to press them, it was clear they hadn't even talked to the officers on the scene. So when my son approached the cops, what

did he say? From what I understand, even if you related to the officer, he'd been shot. Um, they called nine when they got on the radio, and some of an ambulance. He didn't tell them anything. He didn't elaborate, like him occurred that. I mean, I know my son, and that's just like hard to belie. We are going to speak with all the officers that were on the scene. Okay, so you haven't done it. The detectives. They see what happened.

This happened over the midnight shift, and Midnight's assigns detectives to do the scene, and they speak with the officers, and we're there. I asked them about the cameras right outside the station, the ones that would have shown what happened when my son pulled up, about the police station, the police station. Those cameras don't work. Those cameras do not that's crazy, they said, they didn't work. I tell you, I arrived as the young policeman in that station in May.

I went to the district those cameras, and I was there in January of ninety one until we came here four years ago. Multiple requests over the years, the district commander to him, right outside the police station, there's a big park with three schools. So to tell me those cameras hadn't worked in that case, that was unacceptable. I do share. I do share your frustration when things don't work for us. Cameras don't work, computers don't work, automobiles

don't work. It is very frustrating. But you know what, we have these hurdles in every investigation. I'm just trying. How can you use the people have to how I feel like the job is to serve and protect, but you can't do it your if you don't have the property equipment to use it. And that shows me the lack of priority it is to save lives in this city.

But when I talked to the detectives on the phone to set up this meeting, one of them told me that they had already seen a video from the neighborhood. Came only won't work and you said that you did find uh? You said you saw him on one camera, right, I said, I was able to view one and run. That's what I said. Okay, so you have you you do have other videos that you need to watch. I'm sorry. I needed to see what was on those tapes, but they wouldn't give them to me. They said it was

an ongoing investigation. So I went back home and I pushed in other ways. I hit the streets and I got back on the radio. Women have the power to transform this world. We can end crime and violence if we all agree to do one thing to share. My theory is that the gang bangers, the police, everybody is a suspect until they ruled themselves out. I have to see the video in order to rule them out whom

Cortney's homegoing service was at the Cicero Community Center. The funeral home wouldn't work because Courtney had too many friends, so we had people standing room only. Courtney was everyone's best friend. He had that gift of making everyone feel important. Everybody was saying, oh, he was my best friend. He was my best friend. He was my best friend. He really was my best friend. I just loved the stories people told, like Courtney's friend Jova, was just like that

whole chance. The rapper showed up too. He stayed in the back, you know, walking in the room and seeing all these familiar faces and all these faces that I had never seen before, all broken over my friend. You know, it just hit me like he was just a good dude, funny dude. Just like realizing like that that somebody had taken him. You know, it was just hard for me to to deal with that. Ship there. I put Corney in a tuxedo. That's what he's wearing his favorite picture.

So I told myself, I'm gonna make him look just like that. The service, it was so beautiful and sent Tita, she sang for him, We bring up no You're sang this song, I think by my hello, you're Jackson. Troubles of the world. We've been a waitly it says, soon I will be done with the troubles of the world. You are supposed to cry at birth and rejoice at death, because as excited as we are to see a baby, you don't tell a baby, well, this is gonna be

a tough journey. All of his best friends were his pallbearers. They wore red bull ties, black vests, and white gloves as they lowered my son's body into the ground. With Courtney's funeral now behind us, I was just left to sit in this new reality that my baby he was never coming back. But still I didn't know the worst of what had happened to Courtney. That news was winding this way across the city of Chicago. It started at

the hospital on the North Side. Someone who worked there says something to a friend, and that friend talked to my uncle Marvin, who's on the West side, and Uncle Marvin called my mom, who's downtown. Uncle Marvin told my mom that there was a rumor going around the hospital that Courtney was combative. What they told him about that he was being combative. We were shocked with that information. We really were. Police told me he collapsed in front of the station. So when did he all of a

sudden get uncollapsed and become combative? Plus when he arrived to the hospital, he was already in cardiac arrest. I asked the hospital to put together Courtney's medical records so I can see for myself. Brent and I dropped off our daughter at school and headed straight for the hospital for the paperwork. I started flipping through the medical records

before we even left the parking lot. Right away, I found a document all right up from the E. M. T. S. It says my son was combative, violent, agitated, a dangerous to others, and that he was handcuffed. Handcuffed. Police never told me about any handcuffs, And why would they handcuff someone who's dying unless they thought he was a suspect of some kind. Brent was quiet, but I can tell he was angry. I know how he is, and I

know he didn't do anything to pose a threat. Had he been a young a young white guy, nice car, the situation would have been totally different. I thought about those detectives we had just met with. You know, you see and hear a lot of things, but I'm actually really proud of the way the officers conducted themselves. They were just playing me for food. You know, you can take some comfort in that that he was there are people there to care, and that they you know, they

didn't help Brennan. I really need to process all of this. We felt sick to our stomachs, but we knew we had to eat, so we went to one of our favorite restaurants, a place called Sweet Maple's Cafe. We drove there directly from the hospital. Our hearts were on the floor. We couldn't stop thinking about the police handcuffing our baby. Right when we walk in the door, lowing behold. There she is the e R nurse from the night Courtney died, you know, the one who had held my hand and

comfort of me. She was sitting with an older woman, her mother. I told my mom, like, oh my god that I was like, Mom, you remember the story I was telling you about when a young man got killed. I'm like, that's that is his parents right there. Clarissa Hawkins was work in the e R when Courtney came in. She was the one who cut the clothes off his body. I had to ask her, was my baby really handcuffed?

She told me he was. I remember him specifically being handcuffed to the bed, and so we were like, okay, where's the police. We need these handcuffs off um and then maybe maybe like about I said, about a minute, and the police walked in and they took off the They you know, took off the handcuffs. Nurse talking said when she first saw Courtney, his right hand was handcuffed to the stretcher, which was a problem because they needed to transfer him to a hospital bed so they can

work on him and they couldn't. And yeah, it was different. I don't remember ever saying any other gunshot victims come in handcuffed. She didn't remember anything about him being combative. So if if somebody's combattled, we know that when they're coming down, because that's one of the first thing they tell us for safety. Oh this person's could battlem so

be ready. We never got that report about him that he was combative because then now our security team has to come and we have to have extra security there. We have to have medications on board the calm this person down. My baby must have been so scared he was all by himself, but it's a comfort to me that Nurse Hawkins showed him some compassions or something I

do personally. I remember laying my hands on his arm and I started praying for him, like so, I don't know what happened, but please, you know, say this person life. I started praying. She didn't know anything about Courtney when she prayed for him, just that he was somebody. We exchanged numbers and left the restaurant, but the day wasn't over yet. It wasn't even noon. Next we had to go to the Tollyard to get Courtney's car back. We've

been getting the runaround for weeks. The BMW was caught between the police in the impound lot, just stuck in paperwork. I wanted all of courtney stuff back, the clothes he was wearing, his book bag, his phone, and most of all, I wanted the car babay. Courtney's friend, Christian Hernandez, the guy who co signed for it, had to meet us there to get it released. And the thing that shook us both is that there was no blood in the car, but police said Courtney was shot inside the vehicle. It

simply didn't make sense we told the BMW home. A lawyer we found was waiting for us to process the car back in our garage. The lawyer and his colleague took hundreds of pictures of the BMW as evidence. I foundly felt like someone was taking my son's case seriously. They wore gloves and put the items from the car and ziplock bags and labeled them. I stayed inside the house. It was too emotional. I've gone through those pictures of

what they found. There's lots and lots of broken glass, but besides that, it was like looking into my son's world. There's a yellow sticky note taped to his driver's side that says marketing director. That's the job Courtney was working towards. It was his goal, and I promise you looking at that, it just broke my heart. There was a lighter, a nutter butter wrapper, an empty Gatoray bottle, lemon line, his favorite kind, in a parking ticket he was probably hiding

from me. There's one winter glove, no doubt he lost the other one. He was always on the goal. Item after item sealed up in those plastic bags. There was a box for a new iPhone he had just gotten that phone a week before he was shot, but the phone itself wasn't there. The police still had it a few weeks later. When I got it back, the screen

was cracked and the phone was unlocked. Everybody, every Day, No by these Not No Somebody is a co production of The Invisible Institute, The Intercept, Topic Studios, and I Heart Radio in association with Tenderfoot TV. I'm Chaparral Wolls. This podcast is produced by Alison Flowers and Bill Heally. Sarah Guice is our story editor. Ellen Glover is our associate producer for The Invisible Institute. Jamie Calvin is executive producer for Topic Studios. Maria Zucker and Christie Gressman and

Leta Mallod are executive producers. Special thanks to Lizzie Jacobs for The Intercept. Roger Hodge, Deputy Editor, is supervising producer. Sound designed by Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw. Michael Raphael is our mixed engineer. Our theme song, Everybody's Something is by Chance the Rapper. Original music for the podcast by

Nate Fox of The Social Experiment and Eric Butler. Additional reporting by Sam Stecklo Annie When, Khari Blackburn, Ray Jef Sinclair, Henry Adams, Matilda Voyat, Dana Roso's kellerher Frances McDonald, Diana Archmagian, Maddie Anderson, Andrew Fan and Rissa Apantaku. Translation support by Benny Hernandez Occampo and Emma Perez. Fact checking by Noah Are Jenny Special thanks to Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, Matt Topic, David Brelow, and Julie Wolf. We want to hear from you.

Email us at info at somebody podcast dot com or leave us a voicemail at seven seventy three two seven zero zero one two one. To learn more about this case and for links to additional materials, go to our show page at somebody podcast dot com. You can also find a list of everyone we want to think there so many people helped us along the way.